Vamos! Se puede!

I was woken up around 6 a.m. this morning by the sound of helicopters, followed shortly by a marching band. My first thought was that I was home in my neighborhood in Ohio, where we're on the airport flight path every couple of weeks (though not, mercifully, at 6 a.m.). My second thought was that there had been some crime near me, and I was hearing a police chopper. Neither idea explained the marching
band, and both were wrong, as I discovered when I checked the paper. What I heard was the start of the Mexico City International Marathon, which - since I'm near a major intersection - started near me.The marathon was a particularly Mexican experience; I'd like to use a photograph t

o illustrate why that is.

I decided to use my day off to check out the Museo de Bellas Artes (more on that in a second) and happened to be walking down the marathon route for a bit. The picture at left is of Reforma, which I think I mentioned here previously shuts down to cars on Sundays to create bike lanes. The marathon route really embodied the Chilango spirit. Reforma is a la

rge road; it has about four lanes running each direction, plus what is essentially a service road on each side. In my hometown, when there's a marathon they shut down the street to all traffic - runners only. Here, as you can see, the runners got four lanes - that's the center bit - traffic got four lanes, and the bikers/walkers/normal Sunday exercisers got the service road. This fits so perfectly with the Chilango tendency to make the most possible u

se out of the smallest possible space: no area is wasted.

As I continued walking along the marathon route, I eventually came on this site:

That is a group of people - spontaneously, as far as I can tell - doing a choreographed exercise/dance to the tune of "Natural Woman," which, in case you're wondering, is awesome. I was walking through Parque Juarez and found these people dancing, with plenty more hanging around watching them. It's hard to see from this picture, but the tent there says "Muévete" - move yourself - and the woman teaching the dance (whose shoulder you can just see in the middle of the photo; sorry, it's not a very good picture) was presumably employed by the government to do just this. This little spontaneous dance class looks like part of the government's efforts to encourage exercise in the DF.

I continued walking through Parque Juarez, finding all sorts of little stands set up selling jewelry, clothes, and other trinkets. Eventually I made it to the Museo de Bellas Artes - that's the Fine Arts Museum, by the way - and discovered that apparently there was an opera going on. The Palacio de Bellas Artes, which houses the museum, was originally designed as a concert hall in the mid-18th century, and only converted to an art museum in the 1930s. I was not able to attend the opera, as it required a purchased ticket, but the rest of the Palacio was pretty spectacular. I wish I had pictures to share, but they weren't permitted. The entire building is art deco, top to bottom - but it's Mexican art deco, which means you have art deco-style Aztec stone heads. The collection was made up of murals by famous artists like Diego Rivera, very striking. I spent a happy hour or so wandering around (it's kind of a small collection; when one piece takes up an entire wall, you can only have so many per floor), and then probably another hour and a half wandering through the enormous street market that was set up in Parque Juarez while I checked out the museum. I bought a couple small items, for myself and others (who have been known to read this blog, so my lips are sealed) but mostly just gawked happily. There were also street foods I'd never seen before; I didn't get around to trying any of them this time, but I hope to do so in the near future and report back! All in all, a lovely morning/afternoon.